Dr. Alkan is an accomplished scientific executive with over twenty-five years of leadership in drug discovery and management with top pharmaceutical companies. His experience ranges from immunology, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, allergy and asthma to oncology. Prior to joining Alba, Dr. Alkan headed the Immunology Department at 3M Corporation’s Pharmaceutical Division, leading research efforts in Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) agonists as vaccine adjuvants and in tumor therapy. From 1998 to 2003, Dr. Alkan headed Hoechst Marion Roussel’s (now Sanofi-Aventis) Biochemistry and Immunology department. From 1980 to 1998, Dr. Alkan worked for Novartis Pharma AG (formerly Ciba-Geigy) in Basel, Switzerland leading drug discovery efforts focused on type I/II interferons, monoclonal antibodies and transcriptional regulation of Th1/Th2 cytokines in roles of increasing responsibility. Before joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Alkan spent 3 years at the renowned Basel Institute of Immunology, Switzerland, studying the molecular mechanisms of the interactions between APC, T-helper cells and B cells.